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Friday Night AFL

Regulars will know that Prime’s inability to show Friday Night AFL into Canberra has rankled a fan over the life of this current broadcasting agreement, yours truly is certainly one such ranklee.

However with the AFL now declaring Friday night’s massive game between current Premiers Geelong and ladder leaders Collingwood a sell out and Ch. 7 agreeing to show the game live into Melbourne, surely our local broadcaster (local is somewhat misleading in this case) can show it at 8.30 instaed of 9.30 by which time most of us are half asleep on the couch.

Parochialism aside, this will be one of the games of the year and for those of us without Fox its a late night and avoidance of the phone and the internet/radio until close to the wee hours. Come on Prime, show something, anything and show it earlier.

I write them angry letters, since there’s really not much else I CAN do about it. If we’re going to get angry on the internet, we may as well get angry directly to them, right? (Once I got a reply, so, SOMEONE must read them. It’s too late for this game, but not too late for round 19 when cats play pies again.)

Don’t stop there Buggles. Channel 7’s coverage will continue to suck massively until they get rid of Bruce McAveney and David Schwartz at an absolute minimum.

Hear, hear on your Foxtel comments.

But even Fox’s Friday night scheduling took time to get right and was forced into being on account of the AFL, in their wisdom, awarding Friday night games to Channel 9 in the previous rights agreement. The obvious NRL clash here needn’t be highlighted further.

It was one thing for the AFL to do this while Channel 10 was theoretically free to host those games. However, the levels of incomprehension at taking such a decision while simultaneously banging on about the AFL’s efforts to grow the game in ts emerging NSW/QLD markets merely highlights their levels of inadequacy and lust for the almighty dollar.

Over the 15 years I’ve been in Canberra, they’ve gone from live broadcasts, to at the very worst 11.30pm replays.

When the last AFL contract was announced and Seven won the rights over Nine, I strongly remember Prime committing to an 8.30pm telecast each week. Of course that never happened, and although Wagga continues to get games at that time, Canberra has been relegated to a 9,30pm timeslot.

That’s because the Raiders aren’t considered “good enough” to have their games shown on Free-To-Air TV

Nah, all to do with who Channel Nein thinks will rate best. St George, Parra, the Broncos and Bulldogs all have the biggest followings and that is why they are inevitably shown on FTA. Teams like the Panthers, Raiders, Warriors and Sea Eagles rarely get a look in, regardless of how they are playing.

Further to the OP, the current AFL TV rights deal has been a real let-down. The first year was great – Seven and Ten used to show 5-6 games on FTA every weekend. More and more seem to have been siphoned off to Foxtel as time has gone on. 🙁

pretty sure i made a thread along these lines around this time last year. as now, most of the advice was to go to the pub or get foxtel. i bit the bullet and got foxtel, and couldnt be happier. it is definitely worth the $100 a month to be able to kick back on my own couch with my own beer on Friday night and watch the footy live.

slightly OT, but a piece of advice for the Keep Sport Free group or whatever it is who advertises on TV – if the FTA channels had some respect for the sports they have paid to have on their channels and showed the sport LIVE, then you may get some support for your cause. until that happens, i couldnt give a stuff if Fox pays for all the sports and shows them exclusively, because at least it will be shown live.

And I still can’t understand why the games at Manuka are telecast live into Canberra. Raiders and Brumbies games in Canberra aren’t broadcast live in Canberra and this is supposedly a “rugby town”. Seems illogical to me.

The Swans can take their negative game style and GAGF as far as I am concerned.

I agree with your other points, but as for the above, what game have you been following this year? I’d much rather watch the Swans than St. Kilda this year!
Only thing negative about the Swans’ “game style” this year has been their shockingly poor disposal!

And I still can’t understand why the games at Manuka are telecast live into Canberra. Raiders and Brumbies games in Canberra aren’t broadcast live in Canberra and this is supposedly a “rugby town”. Seems illogical to me.

Because it is part of the broadcast agreement that Swans games MUST be televised live into NSW/ACT (or by no more than a one hour delay in the case of a Friday night match).

The knuckleheads at AFL house obviously didn’t have the foresight to recognise that they would be televising games live against the gate in Canberra from time to time. It’s even better when the match is nominally a Foxtel game. In the past this has meant Swans matches have been televised live against the gate into Canberra on two channels. You can’t make this stuff up!

The Swans can take their negative game style and GAGF as far as I am concerned.

Raises another point about Free to Air TV via Foxtel in Canberra. I understand the reason the FTA channels are not shown through Foxtel in regional areas, such as Canberra, is because of the advertising issue. eg. WIN ads versus Channel 9 ads. I was told about 18 months ago, “FTA channels will soon be able to be watched through Foxtel as the advertising issue has almost been sorted”. I am still waiting. As a result, I rarely watch FTA TV as it is somewhat of a pain to flick over. (yes I know it is only a flick of a switch, but I know many other Canberrans also avoid FTA for this reason). Consequently the local WIN, Prime & TEN do get our viewership and so the advertsing issue is even less of an issue. Does anyone know when this may be sorted…it would also be good to be able to record various FTA shows on IQ.

You can blame Senator Conroy yet again. The anti-siphoning rules state that the AFL must be shown on the main free-to-air channel. So even if Channel Seven/Prime wanted to show it on Seven Two they couldn’t. Consequently viewers in the non-AFL regions have to put up with the games being shuffled to the limbo timeslots after Better Homes and the movie. This whole anti-siphoning business was put in place by Paul Keating’s minister for communications in 1994 (prior to the launch of pay-TV) because of fears that Murdoch would buy up the rights to sporting events and show them exclusively on Foxtel – this was in response to a scare campaign conducted by the Fairfax press which kept putting forward the British experience where Murdoch bought the rights to the soccer and showed it exclusively on Sky TV. Rather than abolishing the anti-siphoning rules or making them more flexible Conroy is actually toughening them up and adding more sporting events to it, for example Twenty 20 cricket.

Raiders and Brumbies games in Canberra aren’t broadcast live in Canberra and this is supposedly a “rugby town”. Seems illogical to me.

That’s because the Raiders aren’t considered “good enough” to have their games shown on Free-To-Air TV, and the Super 14 TV rights are held exclusively by Fox (so NONE of the Super 14 games are shown of FTA!!). Both are broadcast live on Fox though.

To the OP, just be grateful that your code of choice is shown on FTA, think of us who are forced to get fox or go to a club to watch our footy. In the meantime, I suggest you either: a) move to Victoria and enjoy AFL 24/7; b) shell out the money for Fox Sports; c) go to a pub/club and enjoy the game in an atmosphere which is second to actually being at a game.

Yep, it’s absolutely pathetic. A huge AFL market is being lost. I don’t watch the game at 9:30, instead I keep track of the score on line.

The lack of games in Canberra is also pathetic. Outside the gates at Manuka Oval on Saturday I spoke to 4 people from Junee who had driven all the way to Canberra for the game. Unfortunately they were turned away because it was a sellout. Not to mention the lost revenue from all the locals being turned away also!!!!

Aren’t the Friday night AFL games shown live to Fox Sports subscribers (albeit on the Main Event channel, the one that spends most of the week on Pay-Per-View mode or on self-promotion) to viewers in NSW, ACT and QLD? They were last year when I had Foxtel.

Shanefos I am a Swans fan too and a footy fan and agree that showing football is the answer, not just the Swans. We don’t get the Saturday night game til 10.30 unless its the Swans, it’s a joke and we are treated poorly.

Don’t hold your breath Mr Magoo. All the tv guides I can find for Friday night have the game listed on Prime at 9:30pm (although the iPrime Canberra tv guide doesn’t appear to be working).
Unless you’re a Swans fan, you have little to no chance of seeing your team live on free-to-air in Canberra.
Incidentally, I happen to be a Swans fan, but I still think that AFL coverage in Canberra is pitiful at best. I enjoy watching any game of footy I can, regardless of which teams are playing and it erks me that I have to stay up until the middle of the night to watch games or fork out for pay-tv.
And while I’ll be heading to either Ainslie or Belconnen Magpies to watch the game – where it’s broadcast live – it’d still be nice to be able to watch it in the comfort of my own home.
And I still can’t understand why the games at Manuka are telecast live into Canberra. Raiders and Brumbies games in Canberra aren’t broadcast live in Canberra and this is supposedly a “rugby town”. Seems illogical to me.